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Queen Victoria's pants go on show in Kent

It's Victoria's secret - but this is no catwalk lingerie. These substantial white drawers - pants to you and me - were once wrapped round the Royal bottom of Queen Victoria.

After she died, her household items were divided amongst her staff - including the underwear, which was, charmingly, given to a lady in waiting. Eventually they ended up at the Tunbridge Wells museum.

"The most obvious thing which they tell us is that she was a very large lady certainly when she was wearing these particular drawers" says Museum Operations Officer Jamie Taylor. "But I also think they reflect her austere nature, they're very plain they don't have too much in the way of embellishment on."

The knickers aren't the first item of Victoria's clothing that's been on display locally - a mourning dress was shown at a museum in Sussex last year; it had gone into private hands after a bet on the horses.

But it's the first time since the nineteen-fifties that these not-so-briefs have been on public display and you can see them until the end of the month.

Says Taylor: "What they enable people to do is almost to be a little bit closer to those historical figures, this is an item actually owned by Queen Victoria and I think certainly the historical value in them is that they'll allow people to actually, I suppose, identify with her on a more everyday level, you know, everybody wears underpants, even queens."

As for her pants being viewed by the public, Victoria would, presumably, not be amused.